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Forum Discussion
Problems w/ New WiFi 6 Nighthawk 8AX - EAX80 Range Extender w/ New WiFi 6 Nighthawk AX12 - RAX200
Please help.
I am a long time Netgear customer, and have been buying Netgear products since the early 2000s. Upon receiving my Nighthawk AX8 (EAX80) and configuring it I found myself fairly disappointed. I'm hoping to find a solution to my issue, or a promise it will be resolved soon or else I'm going to return this product.
A little background about my home and myself. I have 1gbps internet fiber connection from Sonic.net, a smartTV, AppleTV, several game consoles, apple "I" devices/ watches, and IoT devices, kindles, etc... You might say I'm a heavy user, we even have port forwarding and static IPs set up as well for game servers. I also have a background in computer engineering, and reguallarly do software web architecture level work as part of my job. I understand IP4 really well, and have set up a few dozen networks in my life.
Over the last few years I've set up 2 Orbi systems and saw how amazing Mesh Networking was and couldn't wait to get it in my home, however, the Orbi system does not have the configurability that I need -- it's great for basic internet, but it can't handle the features that I am used to on a full featured router.
With the announcement of WiFi 6 I was excited to upgrade to increased range, and improve the peformance with the 40-50 devices on my local network. Again Orbi seemed targeted to more modest users, and so I waited for the Netgear Nighthawk WiFi 6 AX12 ( RAX200 ). I also bought a Netgear Nighthawk SX10 Pro Gaming Switch ( GS810EMX-100NAS ), because the AX12 didn't have enough ethernet ports on it. The AX12 has been a modest upgrade from the X10 ( R9000 ) that it replaced.
In the month that I was waiting I updated some of the cables so I could get the 2.5 Multi-Gig bandwidth that the SX10 Switch and the AX12 router support.
Now comes the AX8 Extender and it comes with minimal instructions, it seems to only have 4x 1 Gig ports, and so far it's performance has been poor at best. I have tried the device in a few different configurations and locations and here is what I have found, with my iPhone 11 Pro using Speedtest to Sonic.net's servers.
Placed the Ext in the kitchen, the router is 1 room away separated by 1-2 walls or about 25-35ft. In this case I get about 15-30% (100-200mbps) of my max performance standing right next to it. To the Master Bedroom 1 room / 2 walls away / 15-20 ft away, the bandwith get's cut to 5-8% ( 40-80mbps ).
Placed in the Office, the router is 1 room + a hallway away, separated by 2-3 walls or about 35-50 ft. The bandwidth stadning right next to it was 2-6% of my available bandwith ( 20-60mbps ), and stadning in the bedroom was about 20 mbps.
Placed in the Bedroom, the performance was about the same as the office, just flipped.
Since, I have a 1gbps Cat-6 connection in the Office, I tried to connect the AX8 Extender in the ethernet connection, but then the bandwith drops to ZERO (0). I think this is because of a loop that's created, and the SX10 Switch might be killing the port.
I looked for a wired back haul ethernet setting in the AX8's web interface but there is not one. I know that even the Orbi's now support a wired backhaul.
Netgear my Goal was simple, get WiFi 6 level performance under ONE Single SSID for my whole home. As of now I have switched back to using the AX12 (R9000) Router, and using my Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) in AP Mode with a second SSID.
How do I get to WiFi 6 level performance ( 300mpbs - 1gpbs+ ) on a single SSID, and keep the ability to have port forwarding?
- Is it possible to have a wired backhaul with the AX8? Will it ever be possible?
- Is it possible to have my R7000 in a Mesh Networking mode so I can have a single SSID?
- Is it possible to run the ORBI WiFi 6 edition nodes and have a wired backhaul with my R9000 and have a signle SSID?
- Is Netgear coming out with a new product that better addresses these needs?
- Will the AX8 be improved, was it launched in a buggy state and these issues will be fixed soon?
- Does the AX8 dedicate WiFi lanes from my AX12 ( R9000 ) and reduce the maximum bandwidth of my other WiFi 6 devices?
66 Replies
- This is terrible đ
Why don't they pick this up in beta testing and sort it before putting it on the market
It's scandalous that they release tech in this state it seems pretty much every person that has purchased these models are having the same problem not just a few đĄ
And they are still releasing new routers aswell should concentrate on getting these ones right before!
Cant believe no netgear personel are reading there own threads and picking up on this stuff?! - I have the R8000 router that has works flawlessly and unfortunately added EAX 80 extender and thatâs when my nightmare started . It works nicely at 100mbs without any issues but eaither my router or the extender goes into power same mode an looses connection every night like clock work. Net gears help is no help repeating the same same things I have already tried several time and their very impatient trying to get you off the phone than a solution . I purchased a new unit will receive today. But what I gather from this post and many others this a bad product with zero positive support from netgear. I will try the new one tonight but if it drops out then itâs got to be issue with software router and extender that goes into sleep mode every night. A simple power cycle does not fix the issue after that. I have to cycle my router and then extender to get to show up in the nighthawk app and be functional. I will repost if the new one works . But Iâm sure it will be more of the same. Shame on Netgear for selling something that did not go thru R and D testing and two poor support that canât speak English . Iâd gladly pay another 100 bucks for a product that was properly tested and worked without a reboot every night . I will be googling problems before ever buying net gear again and look for the same issue posts like this one
If you bought it from Amazon.co.uk then report it as a bad product send it back get a refund and buy an EX8000 from Netgear Nighthawk they are fantastic before its too late!! I have bought an EAX80 and a set of Orbi 353 and they are both useless. The problem with the orbi setup it only works on one name so it keeps dropping devices too 2.4ghz from 5ghz at least with the EX8000 you can seperate everything to taste, check my video above for the speed test. I have two EX8000's running of a basic BT Ultrafast Home Hub and the network runs like a dream I can get upto nearly 700Mbps Down via speedtests being over 10-13ft away and thats very impressive I doubt you would get that via a wifi6 setup. Remember you might think wifi6 is the answer but its not, the problem is with wifi6 you might get fast speeds being directly next to the extender or router but soon as go say 3 - 7ft away the speeds dramatically drop and much faster than a wifi5 setup my opinion stick with a wifi5 network so much more stable. The EAX80 Extender has obviously got an eternal product probelm which I assume without recalling every product it will never get fixed. Like everyone says in this thread ditch it.